Post your PC's specs here! + Discussion about hardware

[NAzu]

Guys (and gals), anyone can recommend me a good video card that can run modern game well (max setting). I prefer Radeon as I had bad experience with NVIDIA chip a few times. I use LCD TV so the only resolution I'll be using is 1360x768 or 1200x1024. I haven't kept up with all up to date technology, so I'll appreciate any suggestion. Is the direct10 video card series worth waiting for?

GF 8800GTS 320MB or a bit cheaper X1950XT 256MB. X1950XT has noisier stock cooler and it's a dx9 card. I would go for the 8800GTS. It performs better in dx9 games and it supports dx10 for future plus it has a quieter stock cooler. Good quality (Seasonic, Fortron, Enhance and Antec Neo HE/Truepower II Trio) 400w psu is more than enough for normal system like that (A64/C2D & 8800GTS) and you don't necessarily need a 6pin pcie powerplug for new videocards, almost all manufacturers include a 4->6pin adapter in retail package.

considering that there are a good number of users that have an AMD64 FX + 7900-SLi-or-better setup, the PSU doesn't have to be anything particularly special. nowadays, the best way to treat your computer right is to get a mobo with at least 8-phase voltage regulators.

Actually 8-phase voltage regulator isn't that necessary for C2D's as they consume less powet than A64's and a LOT less than Netburst architecture cpu's (Pentium 4/D). For example the popular Intel Bad Axe 2 (I975X chipset) mobo has an 6-phase voltage regulator and it's great even for hardcore overclocking.

[thatguy]

Actually 8-phase voltage regulator isn't that necessary for C2D's as they consume less powet than A64's and a LOT less than Netburst architecture cpu's (Pentium 4/D). For example the popular Intel Bad Axe 2 (I975X chipset) mobo has an 6-phase voltage regulator and it's great even for hardcore overclocking.

the number of regulators isn't determined by the chipset... there are 975X mobos with 8-phase regulators (Asus P5WG2-WS, for example). anyway, it's not strictly necessary, but in case you buy a cheap PSU that cannot maintain noise-free voltages, it helps clean them up and can drop the running temp of the CPU a couple degrees. for servers that run 24/7 (as in my case), it can lessen erratic behavior, such as hangs or reboots, although in that case you should be buying a proper PSU anyway. and particularly important for overclocking, in the case of the non-EE C2D processors (that is, everything except the X6800 and QX6700), it increases your overclocking headroom (slightly), since you will likely need to push your CPU voltages to compensate for overclocking the FSB, although in that case hardcore overclockers should be buying the X6800 or QX6700 anyway.

as for PCI-e graphics cards, it's always good to be cautious even if gpu-card makers include molex->PCI-e power adapters. OEM boxes still ship with odd motherboard and/or PSU configurations, making a DIY upgrades possibly tricky.

[NAzu]

I knew that the chipset doesn't affect on the number of regulators... I just mentioned the chipset cos it's a workstation class mobo as is the more expensive Asus P5WG2-WS and 6-phase is totally ok even for home server.

[thatguy]

i know i know, im just a nut for clarifications

i want the P5W64:

[NAzu]

I had similar layout in my P5WD2.

[jhunwung]

I'm on a Dell Inspiron E1505 Laptop but...

CPU: 2.0GHz Intel Core Duo
RAM: 2GB DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz
Graphic Card: 256MB NVIDIA GeForce Go 7300
Hard Drive: 100GB 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive

[KMEI]

Purchased 26th of March,

Corsair HX Series Modular Power Supply 620W
Corsair TWIN2X2048-6400C4
Intel Bad Axe 2 D975XBX2
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz@3.1GHz
AXLe 3D Graphics xTreme GeForce 8800GTS 640MB

Hyundai ImageQuest L90D+ 19" TFT (OLD)
Creative Soundblaster X-Fi XtremeMusic (OLD)

Storage:
Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10000RPM 8MB S-ATA TCQ (OLD)
Samsung SpinPoint T166 500GB 7200RPM 16MB S-ATA2 NCQ
Samsung SpinPoint T166 500GB 7200RPM 16MB S-ATA2 NCQ
Samsung SH-S182D DVD-Writer 18X
Samsung SH-R522C/BEBN CD-RW (OLD)
Samsung SFD-321B/LBL1 Floppy (OLD)

Other:
Logitech MX518 Optical Gaming Mouse (OLD)
Logitech Ultra-X Media Keyboard (OLD)
Logitech Z-5500 5.1 Surround System (OLD)

[reine]

I guess I'll wait for new lower budget dx10 cards to come out, I'd rather not change my new cards for another 3-4 years. Thanks for the recommendation guys. My bad experience i mentioned a while ago was that I use to run a chain of LAN shop a few years back and at first I use NVDIA cards, cards were dying left and right. Maybe it was that particular brand I was using (though doubtful because I use several brand name), Maybe the fact that those card ran hot and they're used 24h nonstop. but since I've changed to Radeon there's so many less dead cards. I never used NVDIA since then. Another reason is I use LCDTV for my computer and I'm not sure if the NVDIA nforce would let me resize the resolution so it fit my TV.

[nox_xie]

thanx for d info.. been waiting for reply for this.. can u explain about differences of ddr2 ram..
me now using amd64 (s939) so using ddr400(coz everyone grab ddr400 instead of ddr333)..
if i wanna change to am2, should i buy ddr800 or just grab ddr667? what's the diff?

or should i wait for quad core? playing gothic 3 so laggy coz the game need dual core..

[NAzu]

thanx for d info.. been waiting for reply for this.. can u explain about differences of ddr2 ram..
me now using amd64 (s939) so using ddr400(coz everyone grab ddr400 instead of ddr333)..
if i wanna change to am2, should i buy ddr800 or just grab ddr667? what's the diff?

or should i wait for quad core? playing gothic 3 so laggy coz the game need dual core..

You'd have to upgrade your cpu, mobo and ram if you were going to swap to AM2. So I recommend Core 2 Duo if your going to upgrade your cpu. For the ram question, obviously the 800MHz is faster than 667MHz if we are talking ram with same latencies. I'd pick the 800MHz stuff cos the difference in price is so small. Here's a suggestion for a nice Core 2 Duo rig:

Cpu: Core 2 Duo E4300, Should cost about 100€ when Intel drops the C2D series prices.
Mb: Asus P5N-E SLI, Good and stable mobo for overclocking and has 4xsata ports and 2xide ports for older hd's and optical drives. Costs about 100€ so it won't break your bank.
Ram: 2x1GB ddr2 800MHz, Some cheap stuff like PQI, Buffalo or Twinmos. They oc decently and are cheap (110-120€ for 2GB)

[nox_xie]

thanx but no thanx.. i think i wait for quad core league.. still want to grab amd stuff.. but why they combine with ati instead of nvidia.. i'm a nvidia and amd fan.. coz their good r great..

[thatguy]

if you want to wait for AMD, you're going to be waiting for a year, if not more.

AMD, all the way up until the AM2 socket, used DDR memory because the controller AMD uses to read data from the memory is built-in to the cpu, so it achieved 90%+ of the performance capacity of DDR ram. at the same time, Intel already moved to DDR2, and while DDR2 supposedly offers twice the data rate, Intel's memory controller is external (in the northbridge, not built-in to the cpu), so it only ever averaged about 40-50% of DDR2's performance capacity. for those reasons AMD got very popular, since its underdog cpus were cheaper, and so were DDR chips.

but that was the past. the fact now is that Intel has a significant lead in performance because it has more experience with DDR2, as well as its new Core architecture. if you're waiting for quad-core processors, you need to understand the issue behind them, to know which of AMD or Intel will better suit you: for any processor to be useful, it needs data to process. since processors go through data very fast, there is a cache (the L1 and L2 cache) to hold them. currently among AMD X2 and the Core2 Intel dual-cores, the L2 cache is shared between two processors--that means that if an application opens two threads (to process data), each processor has equal access to the data waiting to be processed.

what Intel did moving to quad-core is just put two dual-cores side-by-side, so you really have 2x2, instead of 4x1: in other words, the difference is that four cores don't share one common L2 cache; instead two share one L2 cache, and another two share a second. Intel has received a lot of criticism for this (particularly from AMD fanboys), because if one core suddenly needed data that happened to be stored in the opposite L2 cache, the data would need to be sent out and back in (wasted cycles). AMD supposedly has an answer to this, but no one knows anything about it, not even a timeline. the AMD 4x4 is really the same as the Intel quad-core, except using an opteron socket which needlessly complicates things.

so why should you care? if you will run applications that are multithreaded (like encoding videos, rendering images, etc), then a true quad-core (4x1 design) will be significantly better, because all four cores would share one giant L2 cache. but if you want quad-core to be able to run a whole bunch of individual applications... well, those applications aren't ever going to run their processes out of more than one core anyway, so this whole issue of 2x2 or 4x1 is more or less moot. which brings me to this: if you want to wait for AMD to come out with a better solution to Intel's 2x2 quad-core, it might not really be any better than what you can already buy now.

of course if you wait, prices will drop as with anything else. DDR2 is expensive but you just have to suck it up. if you want to overclock, tighter timings are better than higher clock speeds (ie: 667@4-4-4 is better than 800@5-5-5).

also, while AMD may be bedding ATi, nVidia is by no means being exclusive to Intel. there are and will be plenty of nVidia-based motherboards for AMD cpus.

[nox_xie]

wow.. thanx tg.. u really help me to clear something out.. so if just for gaming there are no really different(major).. now i know.. thanx a lot..

[thatguy]

wow.. thanx tg.. u really help me to clear something out.. so if just for gaming there are no really different(major).. now i know.. thanx a lot..

for now, anyway. gaming nowadays places more importance on the graphics card. but there's no telling if some company comes up with some sort of deeply immersive game that demands more cpu power (namely multi-threaded), wherein suddenly 4x1 quad cores would be more advantageous. but since that's not terribly likely to happen, or at least between now and the next time you want to upgrade, not a big deal.

[NAzu]

for now, anyway. gaming nowadays places more importance on the graphics card. but there's no telling if some company comes up with some sort of deeply immersive game that demands more cpu power (namely multi-threaded), wherein suddenly 4x1 quad cores would be more advantageous. but since that's not terribly likely to happen, or at least between now and the next time you want to upgrade, not a big deal.

Actually even now the Supreme Commander supports quad core cpu's. So I think there will be more games in the near future to support +2 core cpu's.

[nox_xie]

is anyone here using evga mobo? seem like interested to upgrade to amd2 X2.. along with 8600gt/gts.. hurm.. money needed.. who can donate.. me poor student.. huhu..

[thatguy]

^ you must really be devoted to AMD. lemme see if i can sway your opinion a little.

if you're particularly interested in eVGA and AMD, you're most likely interested in SLi (since the only eVGA AM2 motherboards are SLi, specifically nVidia 590 chipset). looking around on newegg:

... eVGA 122-M2-NF59-TR: US$129 -> AM2, DDR2-800, 2x PCI-e x16, nVidia nForce 590
... ASUS P5N-E SLI: US$125 -> LGA775, DDR2-800, 2x PCI-e x8, nVidia nForce 650i

both of these boards offer SLi support, where the eVGA/590 does x16+x16 and the ASUS/650i does x8+x8. even though the ASUS/650i is only x8+x8, both of them run directly through the northbridge, whereas with the eVGA/590, the first x16 runs through the northbridge, while the second x16 runs bottlenecked through the southbridge. because of this, the x8+x8 has proven to be just as fast as x16+x16 (on a head-to-head 650i vs 680i comparison).

these two boards are pretty much the same price at the moment. depending on how much you intend to spend on your CPU, either system could perform well. if you want to stay on the budget end, AMD is probably better, since the X2 3800+ is very cheap and will overclock a little. but if you want to go up to midrange, you're better off with an Intel E6300 because it overclocks extremely well.

--

of course, if you don't intend on doing SLi, the above is relatively pointless. freeing yourself from SLi gives you any number of possibilities between AMD, Intel, and nVidia, and in all honesty, it's probably not worth trying to clarify all of the complicated factors if you are already biased towards AMD. but if getting good performance important, you may want to consider this:

... Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3: US$110 -> LGA775, DDR2-800, PCI-e x16, Intel P965
... Intel Core 2 Duo E4300: US$170 -> 1.8GHz, 800MHz FSB

the E4300 may not seem very impressive at first, but it's incredibly flexible when overclocking: anandtech was able to overclock it to 3.38GHz! looking at the results, the overclocked E4300 performs as well as the E6600 (US$310), and in some cases as well as the X6800 (US$980)! you can look around for reviews and comparisons, but the performance of an E6600 or X6800 is already far beyond the performance of the AMD X2 5000+ which sells for the same price (US$170). you have to understand that with this, you'd have to spend more on AMD to get the same performance with Intel.

anyway that's just a little note for you to mull over. if you're interested, here's the anandtech article:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=2903&p=2

[nox_xie]

wow.. great info and links.. great work my fren.. me already on sli mobo right now.. actually i see no advantages of sli course i dunt hav money to spend for sli gc..
even wanna grab a single mid range card(7600gt) also 'a pain in the a$$' for me coz need to spend money on living.. just dreaming of buying it later..

maybe work then i got my own money to buy what i want..

now i stick with my lovely right.. amd64 3000+(s939), msi k8n neo4 sli , 1 gb corsair, 7300gt ddr2 256mb..
36gb raptor (woot).. 250gb wd for movie, vidz and mp3s..

command and conquer 3 seem a bit slow when i set to medium..
titan quest slow when got plenty of enemy on screen.. but still can play.. so its ok for me..

[BX_LeMans]

CPU : DualCore AMD Athlon 64 X2, 2200 MHz (11 x 200) 4200+ @2x3000Mhz overclocked

CPU-Cooler : ZEROtherm BTF95 CU - Fanless

one ultrasilent 120mm fan in the front and two in the Back for circulation, and one ultrasilent 165mm fan directly over the Cooler.

Motherboard : Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe  (3 PCI, 2 PCI-E x1, 2 PCI-E x16, 4 DDR2 DIMM, Audio, Dual Gigabit LAN, IEEE-1394)

Motherboard Chipsatz : nVIDIA nForce 570 SLI, AMD Hammer

RAM : DDR2 2GB PC800 Corsair TwinX Kit (2x 1GB) two kits , makes 4 Gig RAM

graphics : 2x NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT  (256 MB)

both with silent slotcoolers

harddrives : 2x ST3250820AS  (250 GB, 7200 RPM, SATA-II) (two more planned, I have 6 internal and one external sata-connectors) rubbermounted

optical drive : HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-4167B  (DVD+R9:8x, DVD-R9:4x, DVD+RW:16x/8x, DVD-RW:16x/6x, DVD-RAM:5x, DVD-ROM:16x, CD:48x/32x/48x DVD+RW/DVD-RW/DVD-RAM)

optical drive : TOSHIBA DVD-ROM SD-M1612  (16x/48x DVD-ROM)

soundcard(onboard 7.1 surround) : Analog Devices AD1988B @ nVIDIA nForce 570 SLI (MCP55P) - High Definition Audio Controller

Monitor : 2x Proview 986  [19" CRT]  (101211)

Keyboard+mouse : Logitech ultra-flat keyboard + Logitech MX300(small, light, fast and exact in games)

the whole system is nearly noiseless and the two cores have max temp of 31/35°C after two hours Oblivion on MAX details with 800Mhz per core overclocked

[nox_xie]

^ wow.. after reading ur post.. i tempted LOL.. need to find money to grab a new rig.. wanna play CC3 smoother (dual core needed)..

is it overkill? 4gb of ddr800.. OMG.. 7600GT sli? so tempting..